


After The Fall (Three Days Later)

by ohmygoshwhatascream



Category: Astral Chain (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Just be careful guys, M/M, Major Spoilers, hazure, idk what the tags are lmao, maybe spoilers for after file 09, sorry for multiple tags for the same relationship, spoilers up to file 09
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-06
Updated: 2019-09-06
Packaged: 2020-10-11 08:15:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20542961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohmygoshwhatascream/pseuds/ohmygoshwhatascream
Summary: He wakes up and the memories burn bright.What has he done?





	After The Fall (Three Days Later)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [starchitect](https://archiveofourown.org/users/starchitect/gifts).

> hey hey hey! Me and my friend headcanon the protagonist’s name as Azure, but I decided to leave it ambiguous as idk what the rest of the world headcanons protagonists name as. 
> 
> This definitely has spoilers up to the end of file 09. There may be a few for files 10/11, although I don’t think there’s is? Just read it at your own risk.
> 
> I decided to make the protagonist male just because lbr protagonist has no defining characteristics and I’ll probably write some more with female!protagonist x Hal.

“I’m… uh, sorry about A-Akira.” Hal’s voice crackles from his drone.

He does not reply, instead choosing to look down at his hands – fists clenched tight – as he tries to will away the events of the past few days. His knuckles burn white, bone stressed tight against his skin and nails digging crescent moons into his palms. He wills his memories to stop, his tidal wave of guilt to cease for just a few moments so he can sleep without plagues of nightmares and restless thoughts.

Every time he closes his eyes, he sees _her_, Akira, looking up at him with fearful eyes. His _sister_, his own flesh and blood, terrified of him. It feels like some bad dream, one that – when he was much, much younger – would have had him nervously tugging on the edges of his father’s duvet, cheeks stained with tears and nose running.

But his dad isn’t around anymore.

He had spent his adolescent years longing to grow up, to stop his father worrying about him, coddling and smothering him as if he were made of glass.

But now he’s gone and there’s nobody he can turn to for comfort. Not any family, anyway.

He can’t remember much of what took place that evening. It was barely three days ago, yet he feels as though centuries have passed since he last saw his sister.

But if there’s one thing he can remember, something he doesn’t think he will ever forget, is the feeling of helplessness he had felt. That rush of euphoria after a battle well fought, followed by the cavernous hole that his awaiting death left in its stead. He’ll never forget that feeling of hopelessness. That realisation that, if he were just a normal human being, his life would end in only a few moments and there was nothing he could do to stop time in its’ cruel tracks.

Then his memories begin to grow fuzzy. They become burned and faded around the edges, disappearing between his fingers like trickling sand.

He vaguely remembers the adrenaline. The sudden surge of energy and power that had coursed through his bloodstream. That animalistic impulse that had overridden every one of his senses. The same impulse that had raised a hand, monstrous or not, at his only remaining family. The person who he _promised_ he would look after, no matter what.

He remembers the urge to _kill_, to _destroy_, in a clarity that terrifies him to his very soul. Such feelings had consumed him from the inside out until he had no longer remembered who he was. The loss of control he had felt as the Legion - truly just a Chimera under his control - had taken over his dying body would haunt his dreams for as long as he lived.

He remembers Jena, body slumped lifeless over the edge of his blade. Her purple lipstick had smeared, her nail polish chipped at the edges. She had never appeared neat or tidy, with her clothes and face caked with mud and her unruly hair barely controlled by ridiculous amounts of hair clips. She had always come off as dishevelled and messy, insane. She had looked like the maniac Yoseph had painted her out to be.

But there had been something about her then, lipstick smeared down her face and eyes filled with something regretful, that had made him question whether she really had been the villain all along.

It wasn’t until much later that the memories materialised before his eyes and the guilt, hot and heavy, had arrived in a whirlwind of dark clouds.

They’d never know what Jena had wanted. Not now, not ever.

That was _his_ fault. _He killed her._

All this time they’d been so convinced that _she_ was the villain; _she_ was the obstacle they had to overcome in humanities’ plight for salvation.

Yet _she_ had sacrificed herself, pulled him – or the monster he had become – away from Akira. _She_, the _villain_, the _monster_, of this story, had sacrifice her own life in order to save Akira’s

His sister’s face flashes in shadows behind his eyes. Never before had he seen such a look cross her face. The betrayal, the fear, the terror, all caused by him and him alone.

He was going to kill her. He would have done it without a second thought, had Jena not intervened. He’d have sliced through her skin like butter, struck her dead where she had stood.

Akira would be dead. He would have killed his sister.

But Jena, the one Yoseph had so confidently named a ruthless killer, had stopped him.

It’s all _wrong! _This isn’t how things were supposed to go!

_Yoseph is good. Jena is evil._ It was supposed to be black and white. Crystal clear.

But those Ravens, the ‘crows’ Hal had warned him about so long ago… Yospeh’s cold stare, alight with a hunger that had swirled like smoke in his unfeeling eyes… the water has been muddied and he can no longer see the other side.

_What has he been fighting for all this time?_

“H-hey, are you… are you okay?” Hal comes in again. His voice breaks off and his image disappears from view momentarily, his face lost in a series of glitches and errors that the rundown old drone is riddled with, especially after its second appearance in the Astral Plane.

He smiles at the drone, but even to himself it feels forced.

Hal’s image, fading in and out of view, seems to droop slightly. It’s hard to tell what Hal is thinking, with the holographic image just a flat projection, painting his face in monochromatic blues. It doesn’t help that large visors conceal most of Hal’s image, completely covering up his eyes. All he can see is the downwards curve of Hal’s mouth, pixelated edges holding an emotion that only makes him feel even more guilty. He can’t help but feel like this mess is all his fault.

“Sorry, Hal. I didn’t think things would end up like this.”

He swallows. No matter how many times he does it, it always feels a bit silly talking to the drone. It _is_ just a glorified robot, after all. Covered in silly little stickers and modified to look strangely humanoid in a way that is all too cute, it’s certainly one of the more unusual things to talk to. But it fits Hal’s personality, all dorky and silly and - no matter what - the sight of Hal’s drone never fails to put him at ease, if only slightly.

“If I hadn’t jumped out there, back with the Hermits and in Zone 09, you’d still have your job. I should have listened to you.” He pauses to rub at his temples, willing the budding headache from stress and exhaustion to disappear along with his scrambled memories. “There’s enough going on right now and you shouldn’t have to worry about me too.”

He knows that what he’s saying isn’t entirely fair. Had he not entered the fight in Zone 09 when he had, more people would have lost their lives. Even with the highly trained officers of Neurone on the case, fighting Chimeras without a Legion of your own was highly dangerous.

Hal hadn’t wanted him to reveal himself, for fear of the repercussions as a result of their blatant insubordination, but he knows deep down that Hal would much rather be a fugitive on the run than live with the knowledge that their own cowardice and desire to protect themselves had resulted with the loss of other innocent lives.

“Y-you know that’s not true. I can see it on your face. Y-you’re like an open book, y’know. You don’t say much, not really, but your face says it all.” Hal’s image wavers. “Besides, you know I don’t mind looking out for you.”

There’s a pause. Hal seems to swallow, his drone whirring and dipping in midair in movements unusually clumsy and jittery.

“W-What are friends for, right?” Hal eventually says, voice falsely nonchalant. It holds something else he can’t quite place his finger on.

“A-And I know stuff isn’t great know… with, well, Akira and stuff…” Hal’s hologram scrubs the back of his neck nervously. “But you know that’s only because of what Yoseph did… h-he’s… _brainwashing_ her. He brainwashed us all. Made us think what he’s doing is right. But _nothing_ like that is right.”

Hal’s comforting words are clumsy and harsh. It speaks measures of his lack of experience with such matters, a repercussion of someone who had grown up with the comfort of technology, as opposed to that of people his own age.

But no matter how the words hurt, the cold truth that Akira has been brainwashed by Yoseph’s lies and half truths, the words still offer a warm sense of comfort. It’s a feeling that he’d never really felt before. A sense of peace and solace within another person, someone who wasn’t family, but a companion.

Hal just seems to have that effect on him. He just makes him feel safe.

“I’m… I’m sorry, Hal.” He says, words slow and stunted. He hates the way his voice catches in the back of his throat and he suddenly finds himself having to furiously blink back tears.

He knows bottling up emotions like this isn’t good (something his father had taught him from day one) but he doesn’t want to cry, not when there’s still so much he has to do.

“Hey,” Hal’s voice crackles, the corners of his mouth edging up ever so slightly. If he could see his eyes behind those blocked visors, he imagines Hal would have the sort that crinkle at the edges. Soft eyes that show his every emotion like glass.

“We’re, uh… friends, right?” Smile faltering as there’s no response, Hal’s image shifts uncomfortably as the drone’s artificial eyes blink furiously fast. “I, uh, I mean… I consider you one. A-a friend, that is. It’s fine if you don’t! I, uh, just… everything you’ve done for me and-“

“Relax, Hal. Of course we’re friends.” He interrupts, watching with one eyebrow raised as Hal’s drone seems to dither in midair.

The strange contraption suddenly drops down, almost hitting the ground as Hal’s hologram scrambles for what he presumes is the controls for the thing.

“I… uh, yeah. We’re friends. So, we’re in this together now.” Hal stumbles over his words in a hurry, chewing on his lips in what seems to be a nervous gesture.

“And, uh, Olive too! Brenda, as well, once we find her! I’m sure Akira will come round and everyone in Zone 09 already hates Yoseph anyway! So if, we, heh, wanted to start an uprising, I don’t think it would be too difficult…” Rambling, Hal’s image jitters about nervously.

“What I’m trying to say is… we’re all here for you. We’ve all got you back. I- we really believe in you, you know.” Hal pauses.

“If anything happened to you, I’d… well, nothing will happen to you. I’m going to be right beside you, every step of the way. I promise.”

His voice grows much softer, almost incoherent underneath the whirring of the drone and the crackling of the poor audio transmission.

Looking at Hal’s figure, blue and fake and flat yet so unbelievably real, and he feels a sudden rush of warmth that he’s never felt before.

“We’re in this together. Until the end.”

His image looks almost bashful, Hal’s hand once again scrubbing nervously at the back of his neck.

He feels something break within him. A wall he’d built up without really knowing, the barrier he’d been gradually sealing up since his father’s seeming death.

“Hey, Hal…” He begins, a sudden burst of confidence surging through him.

He looks up at Hal’s figure, hands twitching as he fumbles for the words he wants to say.

“When this is all over, can I meet you?” He swallows, the question weighted with something much heavier that he can’t quite place. “The real you, I mean.”

The smile that spreads across Hal’s face is so bright it’s almost blinding.

“Yeah. I’d like that.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hal is best boy and I’m claiming the title of ultimate Hal/protagonist stan. Also Hal is a bisexual legend and that is now fact.
> 
> HAZURE HAZURE HAZURE. Let this be the ultimate ship, Alongside BROLIVE.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Forever Sweet](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20701289) by [starchitect](https://archiveofourown.org/users/starchitect/pseuds/starchitect)


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